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A new year brings an array of opportunities to make the most of your points and miles. Many of these are related to travel rewards credit cards (like the $200 airline credit with the Platinum Card from American Express), but there are even more lucrative benefits that can be unlocked and maximized when January comes around. Today I want to provide an overview of how to quickly earn one of one of the most popular (and rewarding) perks in the travel industry, which has certainly been in the news quite a bit recently: the Southwest Companion Pass.
Let’s start with a quick overview of this benefit and why it’s so valuable. In essence, the Companion Pass allows you to bring along a designated friend or family member for (almost) free on any Southwest flight you take (you’ll just need to pay the taxes and fees, just like you would on an award ticket). This is especially valuable because it applies to both paid and award tickets, allowing you to redeem Rapid Rewards points for you and then bring your companion without using any more points.
Here’s why it can be so valuable to earn the Companion Pass early in the year: The pass is valid for the rest of the year in which you earn it plus the entire following year. That means that you could get nearly two years of use out of it by meeting the requirements in early 2017.
Of course, a benefit like this doesn’t come cheap: You’ll need to earn 110,000 qualifying points or take 100 qualifying one-way flights in a calendar year to earn a Companion Pass. In addition, it’s important to note that not all points count toward qualification. Here’s how Southwest defines points that will count:
As you can see, all revenue flights booked on Southwest will count toward earning the Companion Pass, as will points earned on Southwest’s co-branded credit cards (more on this below). Where things get a bit trickier is the “points earned from Rapid Rewards partners” verbiage. Do all partners count?
The Companion Pass page on Southwest’s website provides some examples of partner activity that will count toward qualification, including:
- Rapid Rewards credit cards, including sign-up bonuses
- Shopping and dining partners, including Rapid Rewards dining
- Home and lifestyle partners
However, there are many things that do not count toward earning the Companion Pass. The first is any transfer from Ultimate Rewards, so if any new holders of the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card were hoping to transfer the soon-to-be-decreased sign-up bonus for the Companion Pass, you’re out of luck. Purchased points also don’t count, nor do bonuses earned on flights or with partners. Finally, Southwest just confirmed that it’s closing the loophole that allowed points transferred from hotel programs to count toward the Companion Pass this year (though it is offering a “grace period” whereby they’ll still count through March 31).
So… given all of these restrictions, what are the best ways to earn the Companion Pass as quickly as possible to enjoy those privileges through the end of 2018? Here’s a rundown of the three ways to do exactly that.
Credit Cards
As mentioned above, points earned from Rapid Rewards credit cards do count toward the Companion Pass, and at the time of writing, this includes any sign-up bonuses you receive from the cards. There are currently three different Southwest cards out there with varying sign-up bonuses that can take care of a large chunk of the 110,000 points you need for the Companion Pass:
While Chase doesn’t publish any formal application restrictions, a general rule of thumb is that you can open one personal card and one business card every 90 days, though keep in mind the issuer’s 5/24 rule if you have opened several card accounts in the last two years. As a result, you could open either the Premier or Plus card in addition to the business card and take home 93,000 points (after factoring in the points from the minimum spend requirements), or 103,000 if you’re able to score the higher biz-card bonus. This leaves you just 17,000 (or 7,000) points shy of a Companion Pass, and several flights or partner transactions could push you over the top. You also still have another great option for a few more months…
Hotel Transfers
Another quick way to earn points toward the Companion Pass is by transferring hotel points. However, this is only available through March 31, and Southwest has specifically said that this is a hard deadline with no room for exceptions. While transferring hotel points to airlines tends to be a poor value proposition, there’s one particular option that is especially appealing in this context: utilizing Marriott’s Hotel + Air packages. These allow you to redeem Marriott Rewards points for a seven-night stay at a Marriott hotel plus a set number of airline points or miles. I wrote a detailed post about these packages back in 2015 (including an Excel spreadsheet to help with calculations), but this analysis didn’t take into account the Companion Pass.
Here’s the table that shows how many Marriott Rewards points you’d need for the different Hotel + Air package options with Southwest:
As you can see, these packages will give you at least 50,000 Rapid Rewards points plus a seven-night stay in a Marriott or Ritz-Carlton hotel. When these points post to your Southwest account, they will count as Companion Pass qualifying points through March 31. Remember that you need 110,000 of these points to earn the pass. If you redeem 270,000 Marriott points for a Category 1-5 stay and 120,000 Rapid Rewards points, that single redemption will earn you the Companion Pass.
The other interesting angle here involves the Marriott and Starwood merger. The SPG program does not include Southwest Rapid Rewards as one of its transfer partners. However, you have been able to transfer points between SPG and Marriott since September, and Starpoints convert to Marriott Rewards points at a 1:3 ratio. This means that you can get the Southwest Companion Pass for just 90,000 Starpoints if you convert those points to 270,000 Marriott points and book the aforementioned package, making it one of the best reasons to transfer Starpoints to Marriott. Of course, that assumes that you don’t currently have any Marriott points in your account, in which case you could unlock this valuable redemption with even fewer Starpoints!
You can also transfer Marriott points directly to Southwest without booking a package, but these tend to be a very poor value (the best ratio you’d get is just 2.8 Marriott points to 1 Southwest point). The same can be said for the other five chains that allow transfers to Southwest:
- Best Western: 5,000 Best Western Rewards points = 1,200 Rapid Rewards points (~4.2:1)
- Carlson Rezidor: 2,000 Club Carlson points = 200 Rapid Rewards points (10:1); 50,000 Club Carlson points = 5,000 Rapid Rewards points (10:1); 100,000 Club Carlson points = 10,000 Rapid Rewards points (10:1)
- Choice Hotels: 6,000 Choice Privileges points = 1,800 Rapid Rewards points (~2.8:1)
- Hyatt: 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points = 2,400 Rapid Rewards points (~2.1:1). Ratio remains constant as you convert in increments of 1,250 Hyatt points to 600 Southwest points. Any transfers of 50,000 points or more will earn you a bonus of 6,000 Rapid Rewards points (so transferring 50,000 Hyatt points = 30,000 Southwest points, a ratio of ~1.7:1)
- La Quinta: 6,000 La Quinta Returns points = 1,200 Rapid Rewards points (5:1)
Despite these poor transfer ratios, if you have random hotel points in an account that won’t be used for a free stay, transferring to Southwest before the end of March could make sense, especially if a Companion Pass is within reach!
Flying
Another simple way to earn the Companion Pass is through actual flying. To earn 110,000 qualifying points, you’d need to spend $18,333.33 on Wanna Get Away fares or $9,166.67 on Business Select fares (note that the total spending is actually higher, since you only earn Rapid Rewards points on the base fare). If your company typically covers a Business Select ticket or you have extensive travel planned during the first couple months of the year, consider booking with Southwest to begin earning points toward the Companion Pass.
Combination
Of course, the best option will likely be some combination of two or three of these methods. If you open the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Card (and earn the sign-up bonus) and transfer 140,000 Marriott Rewards points to Southwest, that’ll leave you just 19,000 points short of the qualification threshold to earn a Companion Pass. At this point you could take some additional flights or investigate completing some transactions with the various Rapid Rewards partners. Just be aware that bonus points you earn with partners probably won’t help; per the program’s terms & conditions, only the base points you’d earn will count toward the Companion Pass.
Bottom Line
The Southwest Companion Pass can be an incredibly lucrative benefit, especially if you can earn it early in a calendar year to enjoy almost two years worth of free companion travel. This makes now a fantastic time to investigate the above options for earning a large haul of Rapid Rewards points quickly and thus a Companion Pass, especially with the hotel transfer loophole being closed at the end of March. Hopefully this post has given you some guidance for how to accomplish this very goal!
For more information on the Companion Pass, check out the following posts:
Source: thepointsguy.com